Mike Ashmore’s Q&A with Phil Hughes

Everyone’s favorite Double-A beat witer recently caught up with Phil Hughes, speaking about everything from his transition to the big leagues to how he’s dealt with all the hype. It seems like just yesterday that Hughes was dominating the Double-A Eastern League, but in fact it was three full seasons ago now. It’s amazing how things change in such a relatively short time.

A part of me thinks that people thought Joba would be better than Hughes at least partially due to his success and dominance in relief. With a recent similar dominance and success with Hughes, do at least some of our minds change in who we think will be more successful in the future?

http://www.homeruncards.com/imagesrc/melky-cabrera.jpg Drew

It’s all still up in the air.

Next year if Phil doesn’t pitch to a sub 4.2 ERA many people will wonder, “What went wrong!!?? The Yanks F’d up! ANDY PETTITTE IS A STARTING PITCHAH!!!11!”

Accent Shallow

I think that while that played into a lot of people’s minds, the scouts seemed to think that Joba passed Hughes due to showing greater stuff as a starter, as well as improving his command.

radnom

Considering Joba was a successful starter in 08, and started a full season in 09, I would say Hughes has a ways to go to catch up before we start trying to compare the two.

This is coming from a HUGE Phil Hughes fan – No. As much as I love Hughes and think he’ll have a very nice career in pinstripes, he just doesn’t have the kind of dominant stuff that Joba has. Of course there’s always the question, which applies to both of them, of whether they can continue to mature and improve their control and everything else about their game, but Joba is starting with an advantage over Hughes because his pure stuff is better.

And man… The idea of both of those guys, not to mention some of the other promising arms the Yanks have in their system, continuing to develop and becoming strong pieces of the rotation for years to come… That’s pretty freaking exciting. Everyday around here we hear from people who can’t wait for their burrito to cook in TSJC’s microwave, but man… When these guys are 27-28 years old, and we have a few of them holding down the rotation along with whatever other pitchers the Yanks have then? Could be good times.

http://www.homeruncards.com/imagesrc/melky-cabrera.jpg Drew

Seems like Phil was most happy to pitch a full season(150 inningsish) when he was in Trenton. Next year is his year to try it out in the bigs. Can’t wait.